Alison Ballard is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work examines human relationships to objects, places, and one another, through making films, installations, and performances. She often works site specifically and seeks to produce works that lie between disciplines in order to research how they share ideology, presentation and audience experience.

During the residency, Ballard will explore the tension between online and offline spaces by researching how physical places can manifest online, creating a series of short screen-based works in a range of media including video, audio, gifs, and live streaming. Ballard will also be artist-in-residence at Metal, Southend-on-Sea working in the centre in Chalkwell Park to develop a new digital work using interaction of physical space, integrating online and onsite experiences by altering the purpose and content of the space.

A park is not just a picture, a landscape, a scene.

It is a place where things happen. Time-based things. Experiences.

It is a place for clearing the mind. For contemplation. For rest and recuperation.

It is a place for socialising. For exercising, for sports training.

A park is all manor of things, none of which are static, paused, or motionless.

The park is a venue, a social space, a place that you visit to witness or take part in something in the same way as a gym, a bar, a gallery or a theatre. It is to be visited in person.

Now that theatre performances are regularly live-streamed or watched as recordings in cinemas, how does this affect the purpose and experience of the theatre as space and place?

Can parks respond in the same way? Could / should a park reach larger audiences by sharing itself online?

What can be shared of the park or of ‘the park experience’ in digital space? Do the qualities of the park translate?

LIVE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

10:00am Saturday 23rd July 2016

Can the mental and physical health benefits of visiting a park be achieved via meditation, online?

Artist Alison Ballard is teaming up with yoga and mediation teacher Paula Mayura to find out with a 20-minute live-stream of seated meditation.

After the session, please share if / how it affects you via twitter or instagram using #LSofC or by leaving a comment on YouTube.